1. From Der Spiegel International, an account of the apogee (or the nadir: take your pick) of capitalism, One of the Most Dangerous Routes in the World: The Darién Gap Migrant Highway, Courtesy of the Mafia https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/one-of-the-most-dangerous-routes-in-the-world-the-darien-gap-migrant-highway-courtesy-of-the-mafia-a-51daa801-f513-462a-b8e2-7f2cab11f04a

The cartel operates not unlike a tourism agency. They have low-cost routes available, such as the multi-day trek starting in Las Tecas, but there are also packages for clients that are slightly better off, involving speedboats, motorcycles and horses. “Four days in the jungle with responsible guides. All of Central America with VIP transport and guides + cell phone chip so you’re always in touch. Lodging, food, safe passage 100% guaranteed,” reads one of the Facebook ads that have been clicked on hundreds of thousands of times – making it sound as if this trip is little more than a harmless outdoor adventure. (….)

Afterwards, the African migrants sign a paper documenting that they have booked the service at their own risk. At the very bottom, they are asked to check a box indicating whether they have found the service to be “unsatisfactory” or “excellent.” (….)

When asked where the most profits are generated in this unbridled Darién capitalism, where everything and everyone has a price tag, most people give the same surprising response: the Chinese, who tend to have a higher budget than the other migrants.

2. Toilet non-humour: a piece for Gender and Education by a team from York University, Toilet talk: using a ‘students as researchers’ approach to problematize and co-construct school toilet policy and practice https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/09540253.2024.2389108

From the abstract: School toilets, globally and historically, have been problematic as places of shame and bullying, often providing pupils with inadequate facilities. This participatory student research project sought to develop political agency with youth researchers, equipping them with research skills to develop a project about school toilets, and to help challenge and shape their school’s policy and practice.

3. Hope this one works: The Top 25 News Photos of 2024 from The Atlantic https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2024/12/top-25-news-photos-2024/680879/

Your exam question? Compare and contrast the attitudes and emotions captured in numbers 14 and 15.

4. A thought-provoking piece by Antony Beevor for Engelsberg Ideas, The crisis of progressivism https://engelsbergideas.com/essays/the-crisis-of-progressivism/

Our troubles started at our time of greatest hope, when the Cold War came to an end in 1989. The Brave New World of the so-called ‘end of history’ and the peace dividend seemed assured. This period, the end of the 1980s and the early 1990s, coincided with the invention of the internet, the end of exchange controls, the Big Bang of deregulated banking, the start of globalisation and the rapid decline of the deferential society and collective loyalties, embodied by trade unions and school and military associations. I think it will take contemporary historians some time to work out which of these were interlinked and which were coincidental in the massive changes that followed.

5. And, finally, here’s a houseproud mouse https://youtu.be/jLDPzQ42kws